Different modes of innovation and the challenge of stimulating university - industry cooperation

This project application is a cooperation between the VRI research projects in the regions of Agder, Vestfold, Buskerud and Innlandet. The project focuses on one of the main subjects in the VRI program, and in the four regions, which concerns how instrume nts aimed to stimulate knowledge flow between university and industry can be adapted to specific regional contexts. This research issue builds on a view that there is no one best practice of university-industry cooperation that fits every situation. The d ominating mode of innovation in regional industries is a context dependent factor of large importance for adapting this type of policy instruments and should be taken into consideration in an analysis of how firms in important regional industries innovate . In this project where four regions join in one collaborative study it is possible to compare industries with different modes of innovation and with different university links. The project aims to analyse the dominating innovation mode and current unive rsity-industry cooperation in selected industries in the four regions based on a common questionnaire and interview guide. The project will analyse 1) what type of innovation mode that dominates each of the regional industries under study, and 2) what cha racterises university-industry cooperation in each of the regional industries. Based on this analysis, two further research questions are: 3) to what extent is the existing university-industry cooperation adapted to the dominating innovation mode in the s elected regional industries, and 4) how can the VRI instruments be adapted to specific regional contexts (i.e. dominating innovation modes). Point 1 and 2 will constitute the main empirical results in the project, which will be used in theoretical analyse s and discussions among the VRI team members regarding point 3 and 4. The project aims to disseminate and discuss the research results with VRI team members and the international research community.